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North Carolina Threatens To Shut Down Nutrition Blogger
vvaduva writes "The North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition is threatening to send a blogger to jail for recounting publicly his battle against diabetes and encouraging others to follow his lifestyle... the state diatetics and nutrition board decided [Steve] Cooksey's blog — Diabetes-Warrior.net — violated state law. The nutritional advice Cooksey provides on the site amounts to 'practicing nutrition,' the board's director says, and in North Carolina that's something you need a license to do." If applied consistently, I think this would also clear out considerable space from the average bookstore's health section. (And it could be worse; he could have been offering manicures.)
FTFA:
"After the meeting he handed out a couple of business cards pointing people to his website.
Three days later, he got a call from the director of the nutrition board."
once you go into the real world and hand out business cards you are operating a business, it's no longer free speech. Title is misleading.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Citizen, don't you know that you're incapable of doing anything without government oversight?
I guess this means I should stop reading the ingredients in my food and trying to eat healthy and balanced. Don't want to be jailed for "practicing nutrition"
He makes money on ad revenue for this advice. And also from the article:
McCullagh said the board may be on more solid ground in its complaint about the telephone support packages Cooksey offers. “But if customers are paying $97 or $149 or $197 a month to have someone listen, that sounds a lot like life coaching, which doesn't require a license.”
So I think the board is trying to do Crooksey a favor because here's what's going to happen. Someone is going to die after telling their family members that they've stopped seeing a regular doctor and went holistic with Crooksey when they should have had their ankle amputated. The family is going to sue Crooksey probably with a number of things like practicing nutrition without a license, etc etc. And since Crooksey is making money off this operation it's going to be hard to tell the court that was just friendly advice over tea. Crooksey isn't going to have malpractice insurance and his first amendment rights aren't going to protect him from the lawsuits that follow regarding the repercussions of his preachings.
Crooksey should be able to say whatever he wants and put it on his blog. That doesn't mean he shouldn't be held accountable for what he says. It's wrong for the board to try and shut him down now but if I were them I would just kindly let Crooksey know that the things he is saying might leaving him with serious liabilities in due time.
My work here is dung.
Reading the comments here decrying the fact that an unlicensed person would write about nutrition is maddening.
These license requirements are written by the same government that brought us the DMCA, the Patriot Act, and narrowly missed on SOPA. Also Vioxx, and school sponsored sugar bomb school lunches, with some whole grain. And apprently USDA inspections of student's brought lunches. It's the same. It's the same people, same motivations, same corruption, same everything.
We know the MPAA and RIAA are self serving corps who will destroy anything and anyone to perserve their power and make another dollar. Everyone here knows that. But apparently we don't know enough about organizations like the AMA to realize that they are the same.
They are out to protect the consumer or patient in the same way the MPAA is out to protect movie viewers. It's the same.